Why living Alcohol-Free unlocks High Performance, with Ruari Fairbairns (One Year No Beer) (E239)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance app. Here's what's coming up. Our system must process the alcohol. It has to get it out of your system. If it doesn't, you will die. And I think a lot of the information out there is like, oh, well, alcohol can help you relax and all of that stuff. Yes, but it's actually causing so much damage in the way we use it. And actually, if we use natural tools to learn how to relax and switch off and unwind and we calm down our central nervous systems, then the difference is exponential. I was in the matrix, very much loved booze. And what started to happen was, I just got this little gnawing in the back of my head.

1:11And we've touched on this, but I think that's where most people are. The gnawing is, hang on a minute, I think alcohol is holding me back. And if you go into that gnawing, because everything is against that, society is against that. If you go, I'm thinking about not drinking. what don't be stupid it's amazing fun well i can't talk to them and then i approached my boss and i thinking about thinking about not drinking and he was like you are committing commercial suicide if you stop drinking everything you want everything that you want in life to be happy to be healthy to be have longevity be running around the garden with your grandkids to um to build a successful business, to have productivity, clarity, to leave a legacy, everything that you want is actually being taken away by alcohol.

1:59And when you see that really clearly, and you see it from your perspective yourself, not some bald guy on a podcast preaching to you evangelically, but you see it for yourself, then most of the time you will choose not to drink. So on this show, we welcome Ruri Fairbairns, the founder of One Year No Beer. And he's about to explain to you what alcohol is really doing to your body. Why simply consuming any amount of alcohol, Ruri believes, stops you from reaching true high performance. And in an era where so many people are looking for those 1%, he thinks that alcohol stops you finding them. The number of Gen Xers, ditching booze is on the rise.

2:42A recent survey says that 31 % of Generation X are drinking less than they did this time last year. And actually, Gen Z are the most sober generation of all. People born between 1995 and 2002 just have less of an affinity for alcohol. And if this podcast is here for any reason at all, it's just here to educate. It's here to allow you to hear different sides to different stories and work out the path that you want to take. Look, no one, including Ruri, is saying in this conversation, give up alcohol completely, you will hear Ruri say that actually he's not teetotal. If he wants to drink, he has a drink.

3:21So it's time for us to talk about it here on High Performance, because there is absolutely no doubt about it. The relationship between the things that we consume and the things that we do is very real. And if you are serious about finding your own version of high performance, maybe it's time to ask the question, what role does alcohol play in that? Let's do it then. And welcome the fascinating Ruri Fairbanks to High Performance. Just before we welcome today's guest, we've got some messages from our valued partners. If you prefer to listen ad-free, you can do so on the High Performance app.

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5:29Ruri, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me on. What is high performance, do you think? Oh, I think high performance is the constant search to find the best version of yourself. And I think finding the best version of anything in the world we live in today is about testing and iterating. So we've just got to try a bunch of stuff and see what gives us a bit more performance. And the things that work, stick, keep doing them, double down on them. And the things that don't, change. Very good. And we're having a conversation today about reducing or eliminating alcohol in our lives. What is the most valuable conversation that you think we can have for our listeners and our viewers in the next hour?

6:11I think the most important thing to say to people is that if you are regularly consuming alcohol, then it is holding you back. We're always looking for levers. We're always looking for something that can move the needle, right? And you try and prioritize, what is the needle mover that's going to make it move the most, right? So could it be this? Could it be that? Could it be these? It's alcohol. It is alcohol. If you are regularly consuming a volume of alcohol, then it is significantly impacting your peak performance. Even for someone who maybe has a couple of drinks after work twice a week? Again, the regularity of that is the issue.

6:51Because what we have to look at is the actual long tail of alcohol, right? So you feel like, oh, I have a hangover the next day. But the psychological impact, the depressant parts of it actually last much longer. The half-life of the psychological impact, of the needing it, of how much it's propagated up by society, all of those things, not just the physiological parts, take a long time for it to get out of your system. So if you are drinking two glasses, okay, it's not having a massive impact, but it is still having an impact. And what I would say is, if you are drinking that little amount, and you are listening to this podcast about high performance, it's going to be easy for you to find out whether I am right or not.

7:39And so why not just give it a shot? Why not say, you know what, I'm going to not drink for a month would be easy. Everybody does it every year, right? I'm not going to drink for three months. And I'm going to look at my data. I'm going to look at my sleep. I'm going to look at my fitness. I'm going to look at how I feel. or maybe I'll track my mood. I'm going to look at my productivity. I'm going to look at the things that I'm trying to achieve in the world. And I absolutely guarantee with every fiber of my being that they'll be up. Because I, like a lot of people, have always enjoyed a drink, right?

8:12I've got here a glass of decent red wine. I think it might be a good quality Merlot. Yep. And I've got a bottle of beer. Now, if you ask me what do I think of these two things, I would say I love red wine and it's good for my heart. I love a beer after work. it removes the stress and calms me down after a busy day at work. Yeah. Is either factually correct? Well, I think both of those can be in part true. And so here's the thing is that the relaxing effect of alcohol is so intrinsically linked into stress. You know, alcohol is the world's most readily available tool at helping us mitigate stress.

8:52Except when you look at what actually happens, so the moment you start consuming alcohol, and you'll see this in your WHOOP and your devices and various things like that, the aura ring, you'll see that your heart rate starts to increase, right? And that's because you've introduced a 100 % toxin. And so our system must process the alcohol. It has to get it out of your system. If it doesn't, you will die, right? And I think a lot of the information out there is like, oh, well, alcohol can help you relax and all of that stuff. Yes, but it's actually causing so much damage in the way we use it. And actually, if we use natural tools to learn how to relax and switch off and unwind, and we calm down our central nervous systems, and we don't put something that's completely toxic into our body, then the difference is exponential.

9:40I'm really interested how we ended up in this place where it's the most normal thing in the world to have a drink. I mean, when someone dies, you have a drink to commiserate. When someone's born, you have a drink to celebrate. it. When you start a new job, you have a drink to get to know your mates. When you leave a job, you have a drink to say goodbye to your old mates. And I've got something here, which is a printout of alcohol-associated organ damage. So I'll just, very few of these, I'll put out a couple of them. Cardiac arrhythmia in your heart, oral cavity cancer, fatty liver, liver cancer, gut leakiness, colorectal cancer, strokes, acute respiratory diseases, pneumonia, muscle wasting.

10:22How have we ended up in a world where drinking something, for most of us, sometimes daily, for almost all of us, weekly, how have we ended up in a world where drink that does that to the human body is the most normal thing? Yeah, exactly. It's insane. It's completely insane. And yet it is brainwashed into us. But how were we ever led to believe that smoking was good for us? I mean, there are pictures of a woman holding a baby, smoking a camel with the advert saying, as smooth as a baby's bottom, right? And you're like, how is that? Or doctors smoke camels. So how do we end up in a world like this?

11:03Well, alcohol has always been this social tool, right? If you look way, way back where alcohol came from, it was about bringing people together, and allowing for that and people unwind and they connect with it. And much like anything, you start to build some corporations, which are about increasing shareholder value and all of those things. And so they start to look for ways to increase it. So as a little example, a side stop here, I met a wonderful woman and she had been hugely successful at building social media brands. And she started working for McDonald's. And she said, you know, it was great, But when I sat in a boardroom and they said, we don't need any more market penetration.

11:45That's not what we need. What we need to do is get people to eat McDonald's at more times of the day. Okay. So they were going to go after breakfast and different meals and things like that. And she was like, I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of that creation. Now, with the alcohol industry, they realized that if they can associate more things, right? So celebration, commiseration, congratulation, wakes. This is propagated by huge amounts of marketing that once you do it on a mass, mass scale, I believe it's a$2 trillion marketing industry, right? That once you do it on a mass scale, then society takes over.

12:27And that's where we are. We are now products of that. And interestingly, that's changing, right? The marketing has started to change. It's since really 2004, marketing in various different places has been more restricted in this country. Countries like in Sweden, far more restricted. And you can see this country's alcohol consumption declining along with that marketing budget. We did a study with Stirling University about peer pressure, and it was really shocking. You know, for instance, one of the highest peer pressure environments was working females in London from their bosses, right? And because they felt like they had to, it was like 58 % felt like they were regularly pressured into having a drink of alcohol.

13:17And more importantly, some 88 % of people said that they'd had a drink when they didn't want to, right? This is a massive study, national study in the UK. So that advertising has now been propagated by this huge amount of peer pressure and expectation. The peer pressure is so ingrained that when I meet a stranger, I say, hey, we should really, now what's coming next is go for a drink. And then there is, so the only way you can meet somebody is to propagate drink. And there's many, many subtleties. Are you going to come out tonight? Or, you know, whatever the conversation is. And inside all of that is actually elements of peer pressure.

14:04It's one of the greatest thing that propagates this. I've never, ever had a problem with alcohol. I did not drink very much when I was younger, partly because I was on children's TV. And it was like, my boss let me know on no uncertain terms. Am I allowed to let myself down in public? So from a young age, I was like really self-controlled. And then I had this career as a TV presenter. And, you know, people think you go out and have a great time. Actually, you're trying to get your job right. and you feel under pressure to do it. So you never really go out and drink. And I traveled the world with Formula One and everybody went out and I stayed in the hotel room because I had to do the job properly.

14:36And then during lockdown in the last three or four years, I just, late 30s, early 40s, I sort of felt like, well, I can relax a bit now. And particularly in COVID when, you know, like a lot of people, three in the afternoon, I'd say to Harriet, my wife, I'll just go and see what wine we're going to have with dinner. The drinking culture at home was ridiculous, and we could talk about it in detail. Why on earth did that happen? Well, it decimated this country's relationship with alcohol. I mean, it did globally. The American alcohol industry used the pandemic as a way to change licensing laws. So they petitioned and got passed the ability to create alcohol as an emergency service, which then meant it got 24-7 access and deliver it into homes.

15:20And alcohol consumption increased by 20%. And that is a huge amount. So the pandemic inside it for people was so much fear. In reality, the pandemic was traumatic. We were shoved into environments that we weren't used to. We had so much fear and doubt and all of this stuff. And that creates this significant desire for compulsion. And what we're seeing now is that this is really a source for the vast majority of people's consumption is these experiences and trauma and stresses that we're not really dealing with. And plus, you know, you were on Zoom. You know, it would be easy. Nobody could check on you.

16:02And so a lot of people, it stepped up a notch. And what I'm hearing from many, many, many people is that it hasn't come back then. They've been trying, but it haven't. That was the case for me, without doubt. You know, I certainly didn't drink loads, but I definitely drank more COVID and then afterwards. And then about six months ago, I would get real sort of strange feeling heart murmurs like at night when I was asleep after having drunk alcohol. Not one drink, but three or four, just three or four glasses of wine. And I'd wake up, my heart would be missing, skipping beats. I'd be feeling short of breath in the night.

16:36But I kind of still went, well, I just, it's one of those things. Then a couple of months ago, it lasted for a good day or two after a night out. And that's the moment where I thought, I think something needs to change here. and I was kind of I was curious anyway because of this idea that I have about trying to find our 1 % this whole podcast exists to find the 1 % and then I was bringing as you've just described 100 % poison into my body on a weekly or two or three times a week basis so when you talk about the peer pressure stopping was actually very easy for me because I didn't drink much staying stopped was harder because if I went around a friend's house who I knew loved his wine and him and his wife said, go try this bottle.

17:22I felt bad going on now. So I just was like, I'll have a little bit. New Year's Eve. I'd already kind of stopped. I was like, well, it's New Year's Eve. So I was like, I was struggling a bit. And then I discovered like, you know, alcohol-free Heineken, which I love. Like that then changed the game. So when I go out now, I just say I'll have an alcohol-free beer. Totally. And I've noticed that people don't, if you order a Diet Coke or something, people try and change your mind or almost, what's wrong with you? alcohol-free beer they kind of just accept you're having a beer together yeah and yours is alcohol free and this feels to me like a really big element of this whole thing is how do we make it culturally acceptable yeah for people to not drink and then not be judged for that exactly well this is you know nine years running one year no beer and the reason why we invented it in the first place, is that that name One Year No Beer was supposed to be enough of a slap in the face for the person asking you that it kept them quiet.

18:22Now, when we looked at the dynamics of what's going on, let's talk about what's really going on. We are tribal beings. And so the tribe, as we know it, drinks alcohol. And so all of this is propagated around that sense of tribe. So what people do is they say they're going to stop drinking and they're leaving the tribe. And this is why the people here are like, well, hang on a minute, if you left the tribe, you died. So they're like, stop, come back, be careful. So there's a big psychological tribal element that's driving that behavior. And also it triggers individuals onto their own. I actually believe that everybody is questioning their relationship with alcohol.

19:06It's not a matter of if they are questioning their relationship with alcohol. It's when, right? Almost every single Sunday or hangover or after drinking, people are questioning their relationship with alcohol. And I think there's a sliding scale of what that sounds like to them. It could be a tiny little niggling or it could be a real screaming at you. And for some people, this takes a lot of time to get to that journey where they're like, you know what, I'm done with this. For me, it took years of the questioning, of questioning, of questioning. But when it comes to this specific thing with peer pressure, and this is a major fact into it, there's some things that we can do to help mitigate that, right?

19:42You know, having a good explanation for what you are doing, okay? So let's say you present the information and you say, look, I'm just doing dry jan, or I'm trying to run this practice for this half marathon, or I'm getting ready to do a high rocks, and so I'm just knocking the booze on the head at the moment. Now, what you're saying is, I'm leaving the tribe, but I'm just going on a little holiday, and I will be back. And they're like, okay, I understand. So here's your alcohol-free drink. I also think that this has moved on significantly since I started in this space nine, ten years ago. The ready availability of alcohol-free alternatives and things like that, I think it's more acceptable.

20:18But I have stood around a group of guys at a party, and they're talking about their cricket championship coming up. And they're like, oh, you know, we really need to win this year. Yeah, yeah, we're going to win this year. Yeah, we need the right people on board. Should we get Paul? And then one guy goes, oh, he's such a good player. And another guy goes, yeah, but he doesn't drink. And so they're like, yeah, good point, forget it. So Paul doesn't get an invite because he doesn't drink, even though they want to win the cricket competition. And that is the world we live in. or many, many people are inside that sphere.

21:02And I think we need to do more to help people with that peer pressure element. Let's talk about why you're sitting here then. Were you once in that sphere? Oh, yeah, oil broker. I mean, absolutely. My job was to take people out and get them smashed. Was it? Yeah, I was very, very good at it. I mean, you know, a lot of whining, dining, a lot of lunches and things like that. and yeah, it was fun, it was great. I did it for 13 years in London here. I walked through London last night late and I could see lots of people entertaining, talking, lots of people on the source. It was Wednesday night, you know, it's still going on and there's lots of people doing it.

21:43We can't sit here and say that there aren't times when that isn't great. I mean, I'm sure you've got some brilliant memories of some fantastic nights out. Yeah, totally. Falling over in the street with your mates, laughing till your head was going to fall off, just the best nights out created by the fact that you were drinking. Yeah, again, I think there's lots of those elements. You could have those good nights. And this is why, for me, I'm not sober. I'm not alcohol-free. I drink as much as I want whenever I want. If I want to go to Vegas and let the wheels come off with the boys, I can, no problem.

22:15I will regret it for a week or maybe two afterwards. And so it very rarely happens. I think if we start to be truthful about this sometimes, was it that good a night? So how much do you remember is one question. And so we're searching for fun. We're searching for dopamine. And we're searching for stress relief. And the only tool we know is to go to the pub or go to that thing and have that experience. And I think that's been very, very ingrained and propagated by society. And actually what we have to teach ourselves is that we don't need alcohol to have fun. Alcohol isn't fun. That's not a direct math.

22:56There are some other math. I have fun over here and I do this with these people. And I think that's the important of building connection outside of just people at the pub. So as an example, I have a CrossFit gym, very sociable. The other evening we're bowling. Nobody really drinks. People have one or two drinks. So building an environment or a culture like that for me means that I can sustain or go around the environment where the pressure is really high because I'm like, well, going out doesn't always need to mean drinking. So how did you get to this point from being brewery that would be the first one at the bar buying drinks for everyone, almost like the cheerleader on a night out?

23:38Every time, the cheerleader. I was in the Matrix, very much loved booze, had a whiskey collection, would buy bottles of whiskey at auction, was building a wine collection. I mean, every time I went out for dinner, I would take a picture of the bottle I liked, I would send it off to my guy at the Wine Society and he would put it in storage. And I built up, you know, a wine collection and would, you know, boast about my various collection and understanding of alcohol. So I was right in it. I also wasn't a problem drinker, right? So I wasn't waking up in the morning needing drink. I wasn't any of the words like people might use to describe it like alcoholic or anything like that, right?

24:16You know, I could go for weeks without having a drink. But, you know, I just did a lot of entertaining and was the party boy. And what started to happen was I just got this little gnawing in the back of my head. And we've touched on this, but I think that's where most people are. The gnawing is, hang on a minute, I think alcohol is holding me back. Or I think I'm drinking too much. I think I need to, whatever the gnawing is. And if you go into that gnawing, because everything is against that. Society is against that. If you go, oh, I'm thinking about not drinking. What? Don't be stupid. It's amazing fun.

24:51Well, I can't talk to them. For me, that gnawing led to me to say, you know, I'm going to have a conversation with my fellow brokers and say, I'm thinking about not drinking. What? I want to drink more. you know so and then i approached my boss and i'm thinking about i'm thinking about not drinking and he was like you are committing commercial suicide if you stop drinking is that what he said yeah and so okay this is nine ten this is 10 12 years ago but i think that there are millions of people probably in london right now who work in jobs where they feel they would be at a disadvantage if they don't go and drink, right?

25:29Or if they don't, and it's still propagated in there. So whether it's said, it's still implied to the individual. So I think you start off with that little awareness and that little ignoring, and you go into that and you say, you know, what is the impact alcohol is having me? What is the truth? And eventually that got to a loud noise for me. And I was like, you know what, that's it, I'm going to take a break. And so I decided to take a break. And I wanted to do longer. I'd done, you know, a month before dry January. Everyone does dry January, right? So I'm sorry, but it's easy. And if you want change, change is not usually easy, right?

26:05It's usually actually hard. So, and this is why, so I decided to go for 90 days. And that is when I just couldn't believe it. I mean, the lights went on. I'm ADHD. And I now know that alcohol is kryptonite for ADHD. And so, you know, all of a sudden, my brain started firing properly. The clarity, the energy, I started to think, you know, what else can I do? I can start exercising and I want to start looking after my body and I want to start really training properly. I run my first half marathon in 1.30, 1.30. I got down to 10 % body fat over that year that I took alcohol free. Everything got better, fitter, faster, healthier, happier, better dad, better husband, grew my business, reduced our costs in the business.

26:52What is not to like? I mean, it was just a transformative experience. And this is the message here. You know, the stone bridges, inside a stone bridge is the archway that holds it up. And in it, The top one is a keystone. We talk about keystone habits. Regularly consuming alcohol is a negative keystone habit. So it means it propagates other poor habits. So you probably don't exercise. You probably can't be bothered to look after yourself. You're not meditating. You eat shit food. You're all of that tired, sluggish. You've got anxiety. So it holds all those things in place. But similarly, taking a break from alcohol actually puts a keystone in place that holds up all these positive things.

27:41Now you're exercising. Now you want to meditate. Now you want to look after your body. Now all of a sudden these things are so much easier to do. So the transformation is exponential. It's not you drinking versus you not drinking. It's you drinking and self-sabotaging and doing all these bad behaviors versus you doing all of these good things that come as a byproduct of not drinking. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to say no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. I made the switch because I was tired of those ridiculous bills and sneaky charges from my old provider.

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30:10So for people that are sitting listening to this or watching it going, I'm not sure I could give up the drink. Your message is you're not giving anything up. you're getting way more than you had. Lewis Hamilton said this year he's not drinking because he wants a 1 % edge. And you talked about a 1 % edge this year. Oh my God, if those guys are doing it to get the edge, then what can you do? I think the two messages are simple again, okay? Well, I don't have a problem with alcohol. Okay, but I didn't say that. I'm asking you this question. Is alcohol causing you any problems? So how's your sleep?

30:48How's your anxiety? How's your mental health? How's your fitness? How's your weight loss? How is your diet? You know what, though? This is the interesting thing for me. I've not drunk now for maybe four weeks. And all of the metrics are improving for me. But I had no idea that alcohol had anything to do with those metrics not being good. And that is the hardest thing of all. Like, I wasn't getting drunk, falling out of taxis, rowing with my wife, eating a burger, throwing up, and not being there for my kids on the school run the next morning. I was just having a couple of drinks. but I wear a whoop and my HRV has gone through the roof.

31:21I'd go to the gym a couple of times a week and suddenly I'm going four or five times a week. My energy has never been as good. Now I can't actually, if I'm being totally honest, sit here and say that's because I don't drink. I also can't sit here and say I didn't have that before because I was drinking. But the only thing that I've changed in my life from two months ago is drinking alcohol. So it's very interesting. What you are saying there is the most powerful message and what I'm trying to say. And I think that there are lots of connotations with giving up drinking. So there's nothing to give up.

31:57Let's not talk about giving anything up. And also, that's a big, scary thing. For the rest of my life, I don't think I can do that. And sober and being completely abstinent, those, I think they are great tools from with which you can make massive change in your life. But I think that the reality is, and this is from our research, tens of thousands of people who've been asked a very simple question. What would you like your relationship with alcohol to look like? Six percent say they'd like to stop drinking. Okay, so 94 % of people have got no interest in stopping drinking. And so this is why we must meet people where they are at.

32:43And what we're saying is, why don't you just drink a bit less? Like this is 100 % poisonous, and it is causing significant impact in your life. If you can do a break, oh, wow, you know, that is really going to help. And a sustained break is going to make even more exponential change. But even just drinking less is going to have a significant an impact on you. And I think that's where we've got to meet people. Now, what we do in our world is we help people, first of all, come in, hey, you know, why don't you just come and drink a little bit less? And then on that journey, we're just going to show you the truth.

33:19Okay, we're going to make you really, really aware at your core of who you are as a human being, that everything you want, everything that you want in life, to be happy, to be healthy, to have longevity, be running around the garden with your grandkids, to build a successful business, to have productivity, clarity, to leave a legacy. Everything that you want is actually being taken away by alcohol. And when you see that really clearly, and you see it from your perspective yourself, not some bald guy on a podcast preaching to you evangelically, but you see it for yourself, then most of the time you will choose not to drink and i think that's the that's the that is the best optimal place if you want to live a healthy good long life is that yeah sure sometimes indulge yeah sure sometimes you have a drink or two but the vast majority of the time no thanks can we talk then for people that have listened to this and are now thinking maybe this is something to be curious about and i think that's the that's the other thing i don't think it's helpful to sit and say, hey, high performance audience, never drink again.

34:29Why not see what it's like for a week and then a couple of weeks? Because there's something else here about willpower and showing yourself that you have the willpower to do things that you might think are difficult. That is also hugely empowering for people. Yeah, exactly. So what is the biggest blocker and how can we help people overcome the things that make this so difficult? Stress is such a key factor in this thing. But what we are seeing is that most people, A, have never been taught the tools how to deal or manage or mitigate stress. In actual fact, they're doing the things to vastly increase significantly their stress.

35:05And then they're getting to the end of the day wondering why they need a drink. Let me give you a little example. Our central nervous system is a bit like one of those little toy cars just with a little dynamo in it. And so you get up in the day and you start winding up like this, you know, you wind it up, wind it up, wind it up, you wind it up. and you've got more stress from work and problems and family stuff and everything else and you wind up and then you get to the end of the day and you put that little toy car down expecting it to relax and go to sleep it shoots off into the distance and that's our brain just going into overdrive of like i need something to switch off at the end of the day but what happens is when you teach the tools of how to regulate yourself right and we use this wonderful device that helps people see in data, right, whether they're in fight or flight or recovery, and we show them just how impactful they are being stressed out during the day, is that if all you do with that little toy car is when you bring it to the top, you just pause and allow your central nervous system to turn back into recovery.

36:02Now you can actually handle a higher level of stress without getting to the end of the day and requiring a drink. So stress resilience, learning stress management tools is really important. We've talked about, you know, people's environments. We've talked about stress. I want to talk about meaning and purpose and why that is so important. So important. So for me, I realized that commuting, and I'm so sorry for everyone in London, maybe you love it, maybe you don't, or in any big city, I guess. I'm from the Isle of Mull, right? It's a beautiful island. I've spent my entire life on boats. And here I was commuting via tube into a windowless office every day, working in a job that I found very fun and I made a lot of money, but I wasn't connected to what it was and it wasn't who I was.

36:55And because of that, I needed alcohol to live that life. And so when I sort of went through this process of changing my relationship with alcohol, I realized, well, A, I'd started launching One Year No Beer. and when that when I saw that it was starting to help people and I would get these messages you know a handwritten letter from a son saying I've got my dad back these these messages of posts of you know you changed my life I mean one guy who is the founder of a very large tech business who came through our program he called me two weeks ago and he said you not only saved my marriage you saved my life.

37:31And you're like, how can you live another way? I don't know how to live another existence now other than helping people through this change. And so getting connected into that element of meaning and purpose was huge for me. Now, wait, pause. All the people in the finance and all the people in insurance, all these people who work in these jobs, they're like, great, Rory, good for you. You found your thing. And now you're all covered up in meaning and purpose. Well done. So here's something really powerful to remember about meaning and purpose in terms of compulsion, okay, is that direction is as powerful as destination, okay?

38:12A lot of people, right, actually are highly empathic. And because they're highly empathic, they are significantly more like to turn to compulsion because we're not taught how to deal with our emotions. And alcohol is one of the most readily available tools for packing down emotions. So when you take that away from the table, you're left with an empath. You're left with somebody empathic. And what do empaths need? They need to help others. They need to be able to give back to others. And this is extremely common for the people who have problematic relationships with alcohol. So what happens when you take them through that process is, okay, you need to be helping and serving others and you need to feel like you do that.

38:54I'm going to give you an example of one of our guys who came through the program. And he is on the board at one of the large banks out there. And he said, Ruri, thank you so much for the program. I've now realized I fucking hate the finance industry. What do you want me to do now? I'm on the website, right? And again, exactly his situation. We're like, okay, well, you are empathic and you need to give back. So he turned around and he said, I want to, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to create a department to coach junior executives up into the senior team. And he got that passed. He's now doing it.

39:31So he is now feeling that fulfillment of helping people even within that role. Okay. Now I started off by saying direction is as powerful as destination. What does that mean? You don't need to be building schools in Kenya or creating water pumps or saving the planet or, you know, helping people change their relationship with alcohol. You don't have to be doing it to reduce the compulsion, but you do have to be clear that that's what you want to do. Okay. And what happens when you make the commitment? Okay. I work in the finance industry. I keep choosing. I'm so sorry for everybody in the finance industry.

40:05I work in the finance industry. I don't love it. I realize that it's contributing to my relationship with alcohol. Meaning and purpose is a major factor. What is it I feel like I want to do? And when you come start and you make a decision to go in a direction, right? Okay, I'm starting to create this thing, whatever it is. Suddenly, you'll be reading about it. Suddenly, you'll be following podcasts about it. Suddenly, you'll be talking to people about the idea. You might even start putting money towards it. And that calms down the compulsion because we know we're heading in the direction of where we will feel more meaning and purpose.

40:39I love that. So interesting. Another of the core drivers i want to explore with you as sleep yeah yeah because i always thought oh have a couple of drinks if you want to sleep well i mean i'm the yeah i'm on a flight it was always give me three or four bottles of that red wine because i want to sleep um i'm imagining i probably have got that wrong and i imagine you're probably going to tell me why i'm going to tell i'm going to tell you off right now yeah okay so there's a few things here alcohol is significantly detrimental to sleep. Again, when you see this in the data, you will see that when you start drinking, heart rate goes through the moon.

41:16You're basically processing poison, which we talked about earlier. So what it stops, it disrupts deep sleep and it stops us from getting that good, healthy deep sleep. Again, we're a sleep monitor and you will see straight away that deep sleep is significantly impacted. Sleep deprivation is a torture device. Now, we need to focus more on sleep as a race. We need to teach people better about sleep. Sleep is a skill. We've never really been taught to deal with this amount of stress, this amount of stuff going on in the world, psychological, all of those stuff, and get good sleep. What does the alcohol do?

41:56Specifically. Yeah. So when you start consuming alcohol, literally because it is a toxin or a poison, you're now working overdrive. You know, there's lots of research out there saying we shouldn't be eating before dinner because it sends your system into overdrive. You're trying to calm down. What we have to do is be calming down all of those things for sleep, nice and naturally. And when you do that and you go into parasympathetic nervous system, so that's the element, that is where you're getting all the recovery. Recovery, what does that mean? Well, that means your organs are repairing. That means your brain is learning.

42:26We now believe that the vast majority of neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to learn and develop new things and new skills happens during deep sleep. So that's why we must, must, must prioritize that sleep. The knock-on effect of drinking alcohol, then having sleep deprivation, those two things are significantly impactful, is then, you know, you're many, many more times likely to desire compulsion the next day, again, which then propagates the need to have alcohol. Because it's been so stressful on your system, you wake up with an inherent level of stress. Imagine for a second that you have a tank availability of stress to deal with during the day.

43:04And if you haven't dealt with your past trauma, that's actually stressful on your central nervous system, ruminating in your brain, thinking, overreactive, mental health impactful on your central nervous system, the food you eat, coffee, if you drank alcohol last night and didn't sleep well. Now your availability to deal with stress is very, very small. So when you get the stress from the day into here, you get absolutely worked up into a hyperactive state and then you can't calm down and you're like that's why i need a drink again at the end of the day but this is propagated by the alcohol in the first place physiologically does alcohol reduce our stress it in a very in the moment it does psychologically it does in the very very beginning right so it helps the brain switch off and and all of that numbing effect but it actually propagates and increases the stress let me put an analogy for you okay let's say I created a headache pill.

43:58And you came to me and you said, I've got a really bad headache. I said, great, take this pill. But after you've taken that first pill, 15 minutes later, you'll need to have another one. Okay. And then 15 minutes after that, you'll need to have another one and you'll need to have another one. You'll need to keep taking it. The more you take, the worse your headache is going to feel tomorrow. Right. And you're like, that's absolutely ridiculous. Like, why would anybody take that? And that's how we are using alcohol and how we view alcohol. And actually, the things that we are seeking for with alcohol is actually making significantly worse.

44:33I've got fear in public. My anxiety is through the roof. Wait a second. You have anxiety and you're regularly drinking alcohol? I think just stop drinking and then see if you have anxiety. Because nine times out of 10, that anxiety is going to significantly reduce. Oh, you feel low and depressed. You feel sad. You're regularly consuming alcohol. Okay, well, let's start with not drinking alcohol and then see. And if that changes that thing, great. If it's not, then maybe you need to go and do all the other stuff. It's so interesting, this, isn't it? Because all the audience listening or watching this will have things in their life that they wish were better.

45:16It might be a myriad of different reasons. But one thing you can guarantee is if you stop drinking for a short period of time, at least you will know if it's the alcohol or isn't. That's it. So where's the negative there? Just to experiment. We started the podcast by saying, what is high performance? About testing and iterating. So let's test. Let's just run the test and say, okay, so you've done a month before. Let's just see if it gets longer. Do things get better? Okay, that's amazing. Then you know that alcohol is costing you. What is the cost? What was life like before? And then what's life like now?

45:49That's the cost that you're paying to have this thing in your life. That's the truth of the cost. So for you, what is the cost? How different are you feeling? What are the things that have changed? How big is that cap? If you were going to put it in numbers, right, out of 10, what were you before now you've realized and by the way okay before you probably thought you were a nine out of ten right i'm a high performance guy i'm operating at nine or ten but now in reality looking back where were you before i definitely thought i was a nine well i thought i had days where i was you are a nine thanks i probably was a four yeah a four yeah last year was hard and actually when you have and it was hard for a number of reasons and when it got hard having a drink made it a bit less hard.

46:37And it's only at the end of the year that I now think, man, maybe if I hadn't had those drinks, less hard stuff would have happened. Alcohol specifically attacks your coping mechanisms. So your ability to cope with the difficult stuff in your life is diminished by regularly drinking alcohol. So if you're going through a tough time, why add alcohol? And this is, again, where we get people to say, we drink when times are hard, but that is never when you should drink? Why would you add a depressant in when you need positivity, right? The only time to drink is when you're smashing out the park, everything is fine, you're feeling really good, you've got good people around you, and you're willing to allow a very significant depressant into your life that you know is going to force you down, but you haven't got much work next week, you don't really need to be super productive and everything else.

47:25That's really the only time to consume it. What could you have said to yourself that would have convinced you that you weren't a nine that you were actually a four? Is there anything you could have said to yourself? I don't think so. Yeah. No. So the only way to find out is by giving it a shot. Amazing. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you for having me on. Look, I'm sure you've got loads of thoughts and questions after listening to that conversation, and I'd love to hear them. You can reach out to us on social media, send me a DM. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on X, I'm on Instagram, and I love hearing from you.

48:02And if there's something in there that's made you think or made someone around you think, and I'd be amazed if there wasn't, then I suggest that you pass this conversation to that person. The best thing that you can do is just share the knowledge and the understanding that someone like Ruri has, and just see how many lives it can change. So please do continue to spread the learnings you're taking from these conversations. And remember, there is no secret. It is all there for you. So chase world-class basics. Don't get high on your own supply. Remain humble, curious, and empathetic. And I'll see you soon.

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